RockMelt Gets $30M From Accel, Khosla, Andreessen Horowitz

RockMelt just took $30 million in funding from Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz to hire new people, build out new products and market them.

RockMelt June 29 said it just bankrolled $30 million in funding
from new investors Accel Partners and Khosla Ventures and existing investor
Andreessen Horowitz, a move that will help the company hire new talent and
accelerate product development, marketing and partnerships.

Launched last November with the blessing, funding and support of browser
pioneer Marc Andreessen, RockMelt's sole product is a social Web browser based on Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Chromium open-source project.

The browser lets users
access and chat with their Facebook contacts from the left-hand rail in the application, with
Twitter and other applications accessible in the right-hand rail.
By adding the social tools to the browser, RockMelt aims to keep
users engaged longer than they would in Microsoft Internet Explorer,
Mozilla Firefox or Chrome.
The browser certainly hinges on social tools, but it also leverages Google's search engine to help users find content.
There is also a version of RockMelt for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone.
More than 1 million people have tried their hand at
RockMelt, which now boasts hundreds of thousands of active users who use it on
an average of 6.5 hours a day. RockMelt is now in its third beta, which for the
first time includes integration with Facebook.
RockMelt beta 3 lets users manage Facebook friend
requests, messages and notifications directly in the browser instead of solely
on Facebook.com. When users start a chat on Facebook.com, it will open a
RockMelt chat window.
Now RockMelt is freshly flush with cash, and has raised $40 million in funding to date.
Existing
investors Bill Campbell, chairman of Intuit and Apple board member,
Josh
Kopelman of First Round Capital, and angel investor Ron Conway joined
Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz in the latest
infusion.
Jim Breyer of new investor Accel Partners and Vinod
Khosla of new investor Khosla Ventures will join RockMelt's board of directors.
"There are so few people who have founded or funded
multiple industry-changing, billion dollar companies," observed RockMelt
CEO and co-founder Eric Vishria.
"Marc Andreessen, Jim Breyer and Vinod
Khosla are three such people. We are humbled and thrilled to be working with
such an incredible group."